Pope Meets a Chief Rabbi, Feeding Talk of Israeli Ties

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Pope John Paul II met one of Israel's chief rabbis today in a visit that was denounced as "blasphemy" by a former Chief Rabbi in Israel, but that could signal progress toward full Vatican-Israeli relations.

The Vatican said the half-hour meeting between the Pope and the Chief Rabbi of Israel's Ashkenazi Jews, Yisrael Meir Lau, at the Pope's summer residence of Castel Gandolfo near Rome sought to offer the Vatican's moral support to the latest peace moves in the Middle East. The visit was the first between a Pope and one of Israel's chief rabbis since the founding of the Jewish state in 1948, although the Pope has met in the past with Israeli Government officials.

The Pope and the rabbi, both natives of Poland, welcomed each other with the word shalom, then exchanged words in Polish before switching to English for the rest of their meeting.

But the visit by Rabbi Lau, who was in Italy to attend a meeting of religious leaders from numerous faiths in Milan, clearly reflected a revival of intentions to resolve issues dividing Israel and the Vatican following the agreement between Israel and the Palestinians. A 'Delicate' Time

According to the Vatican statement, the visit was of particular importance since it came at a "delicate and important time for peace in the Holy Land and the Middle East, after long and painful conflicts."

Though Israeli and Vatican officials were at pains to stress the visit's purely religious nature, Rabbi Lau was accompanied by Israel's Ambassador to Italy, Avi Pazner, a member of the commission that is working to pave the way for the establishment of full diplomatic recognition of Israel by the Vatican. In recent days, officials on both sides have spoken in glowing terms of progress being made in the joint commission, though neither side will say which issues, if any, still divide them, or what the timetable for recognition might be.

In Israel, the visit met harsh criticism. Rabbi Shlomo Goren, a predecessor of Rabbi Lau as head of the Ashkenazi Jews in the 1970's, denounced it on Israeli radio as "blasphemy beyond expression." In an editorial in The Jerusalem Post, Rabbi Goren said today that the Pope made a "mockery" of Israel with the visit. Any visit to the Vatican before diplomatic recognition was "meaningless," he said.

Israeli officials and other Jewish leaders have always made clear that they were dissatisfied that the Vatican did not recognize Israel. But in recent years more than 40 nations that had earlier refused full diplomatic recognition to Israel, most notably the Communist bloc in Eastern Europe, moved to establish full relations, leaving the Vatican relatively isolated in its refusal. Accord Could Be Near

But recent statements by Israeli leaders and Vatican officials have supported the view that, given the breakthrough between Israel and the Palestinians, an accord with the Vatican may be near. Mr. Pazner said today after the visit that the Vatican and Israel were enjoying "a very good atmosphere in relations" and that "the day is near" for diplomatic ties.

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During the meeting, Rabbi Lau repeated an invitation for the Pope to visit Jerusalem that had already been extended by the Israeli Government. According to a Vatican description of the visit, Pope John Paul expressed the hope that he would one day "travel in pilgrimage once again to the Holy Land." But Rabbi Lau said after the meeting that he received no firm date for a papal visit.

"The Pope limited himself to smiling, and said the time of his visit was approaching," Rabbi Lau told reporters.

As Karol Cardinal Wojtyla, the Archbishop of Cracow, Poland, Pope John Paul II visited Israel in December 1963. Pope Paul VI made his historic trip to Jerusalem the next year, but the relationship between Israel and the Vatican has always been clouded by an array of issues, including the status of Jerusalem and human rights issues relating to Israel's treatment of the Palestinians in the occupied regions.

At least part of the visit today was taken up by the two men's reminiscing about Poland, where several of Rabbi Lau's relatives had been rabbis in the southern Polish hamlet of Wadowice, the Pope's birthplace. But most of the rabbi's family perished in the Holocaust, and he was liberated as an 8-year old boy from the German concentration camp at Buchenwald. Lingering Anti-Semitism

Rabbi Lau said he thanked the Pope for using his influence in obtaining the closure of a convent of Carmelite nuns at the site of the Auschwitz extermination camp, which lies within the bounds of the Pope's former Cracow diocese. But he said he told Pope John Paul that a "certain anti-Semitism" lingered among segments of the Roman Catholic world.

In its statement, the Vatican said the rabbi's visit served once again to underscore the "overcoming of historic, even grave, misunderstandings." It said the Pope recalled the "particular relations" Christianity enjoyed with the Jewish faith, "relations that exist with no other religion."

This was a reaffirmation of the Pope's previous attacks on anti-Semitism, and his emphasis on the equal dignity of the two faiths.

Rabbi Lau said he hoped his visit would have "rather more success" than the visit in 1946 of the Jewish Chief Rabbi, Yitzak Halevi Herzog, the father of former President Chaim Herzog of Israel, who went to Pope Pius XII to beg with little success that Jewish war orphans be released from Roman Catholic monasteries to Jewish families.

A version of this article appears in print on September 22, 1993, on Page A00016 of the National edition with the headline: Pope Meets a Chief Rabbi, Feeding Talk of Israeli Ties. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe